Interrogating the Consensus: a response to Michael Dummett

Extract

Professor Michael Dummett, in the October New Blackfriars, quotes an article by Thomas Sheehan which asserts that there is ‘a liberal consensus’ among Catholic Biblical scholars as to the historical basis of our faith. This consensus includes such views as that Jesus did not think that he was divine, that Mary was not a virgin and that Joseph was the natural father of Jesus, that Jesus did not refer to himself when he talked of the Son of Man but rather to some future apocalyptic figure, and that the remains of his corpse are still in a tomb in Palestine. Professor Dummett maintains that these views are a denial of the solemn teachings of the Church, and in his subsequent article (the one which appeared in December) he argues that if they are accepted then ‘that teaching is reduced to a demand for the acceptance of certain forms of words, which may be taken as expressing anything one chooses’ (566). I would agree with Professor Dummett, but I would question the existence of such a consensus. In fact, in a letter published in The Tablet of 5 March, commenting on Hie Tablet’s report of the debate between Professor Dummett and Professor Lash, Father Raymond Brown (who is Auburn Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary, New York) writes:

... I found no better example of ultra-liberal distortion than the writing of Thomas Sheehan. From personal experience, I know very well the kind of biblical exegesis that is being taught in most Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States and it is a very moderate centrist presentation, almost diametrically opposed to Sheehan’s interpretations of the New Testament.